streakeagle

It has always been a luck of the draw for me. VorpX constantly changes. Sometimes it works really well for SF2, other times it doesn't. The Reverb G2 can be used one of two ways: Steam VR or Open XR/Windows Mixed Reality. I have not run it in a while, so I am not sure if it is currently working for me. The last time I used it (months? years?), it worked really well for the G2, but I couldn't get it working at all with the Quest 2.

I spent some time flying the new release last night. The main problem I have is the Flaming Cliffs radio implementation. There is a button for toggling the level of comms, but the default is to pick up every radio transmission. Even using the minimum comms setting, navigation beacons blare constantly with no way to reduce the volume. Aside from that, it was fun to fly despite any inaccuracy in the flight model. It is a huge step up from the original release that used the F-15C cockpit and it is a decent step above the first dedicated cockpit release.

This adds the new cockpit, but the real upgrade comes when it is converted into a stand-alone mod like the F-4B. Unfortunately, progress is slow and the development team lacks the manpower and skillset to make these two mods as realistic/accurate as the A-4E-C. But when you compare where they started to where they are now, it is a giant step forward and comparable to the earliest iterations of the A-4E-C.

This discussion includes Ed Rasimus and other F-4 pilots describing chaff/flare deployment on F-4s, including clarification on the F-4C and F-4D in the 1970s: F-4 chaff/flare loads (narkive.com) As I originally posted: F-4Cs: never, F-4Ds late 70s/early 80s.

I can assure you that the F-4D got the countermeasures retrofitted toward the late 70s early 80s. They wouldn't have put on the pylons without putting in the panels. The F-4Cs were going out of service, and therefore did not get updgraded.

F-4Ds eventually got the same wing pylons as F-4Es with the countermeasures mounted at the rear. F-4Cs never got those pylons, and hence never got built-in countermeasures.

Years ago (I have had VR that long?) I tried flying SF2 in VR using VorpX and the original Oculus Rift. I couldn't write custom profiles, but I tried borrowing profiles from all of the supported games. I couldn't get it to run in DX10, but if I forced DX9, it did work. But it was buggy, ugly, difficult to use, and tended to crash when exiting missions. CAStary eventually got VR and fiddled with SF2/VorpX and somehow got it running ok in DX10. He sent me the profile, but I had never gotten around to trying it out. Well, today I installed the latest version of VorpX and tried out Stary's SF2 profile on my Oculus Rift S. It isn't perfect, but it has improved tremendously. There is a way to toggle between zoomed in for flying and zoomed out for navigating the menus, which solves one of the most annoying bugs I experienced the last time I tried it. At this point, I only see two major problems with flying VR using VorpX: 1) It uses a "mouse look" emulation that only allows you to pivot your viewpoint around, i.e. you can't lean in closer to look at something in detail or move your head around for a better view around a canopy frame. 2) After removing the yaw and pitch limits, you can see how ugly the combined stock cockpit/external model looks because they weren't designed for 360 degrees of pitch and yaw. You can often see through you own aircraft because the cockpit model wasn't designed for you to see anything beyond what was visible with the default view limits. Once I am in the game with my jet, I like using the F1 key to center the view, followed by adjusting the zoom out to the maximum. On my Rift S, the graphics look very nice with smooth, high frame rates. If you have VorpX and want to try SF2, log in to the cloud profiles and find and save the "Strike Fighters 2 DX10" profile, and import it into the local Vorpx library.

Back in the day when I got my first PC for home/gaming (around August of 2000), I saw three WW2 flight sims on the shelf: EAW, Jane's WW2 Fighters, and Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons Over Europe. I studied the information on the boxes: flyable planes, screenshots, etc. It was a tough call, but I already owned Jane's Fighters Anthology and loved the graphics on the box, so I went with Jane's WW2 Fighters. WW2 combat flight sims have never stopped evolving and far surpassed those three sims, so I never did go back and buy or play EAW despite my years of dedication to TK's Strike Fighters series.

I used an X-52 Pro for many years and loved it. It still works, but the twist rudder axis needs to be cleaned/replaced. My X-52 Pro was from the initial release by Saitek. The quality was great long hours every day over a lot of years. Later batches under the MadCatz years were notorious for inconsistent quality. I have no personal experience with the Logitech generation of Saitek sticks. If they are making them as good as Saitek once did, I would go with an X-52 Pro.

This has always been a promising sim for tablets with steady improvements. But I don't really play sims on tablets or phones. Since these are able to run on phones/tablets, they should be targeting Quest 2 VR. I already have WWI and WW2 VR sims which are somewhere between arcade action and a lite sim. If Gunship IV could be adapted to the Quest 2, it would rule: a VR equivalent to the Strike Fighters series.

While my F-4 cockpit remains a work in progress, I have ended up with everything WinWing sells for a DCS F/A-18C Hornet cockpit. I don't use the stick, because I prefer the feel of the VKB Gunfighter and I have about 7 or 8 different grips I can use with that base. But everything else is WinWing. It isn't exactly a 1:1 copy of the real cockpit. But it is reasonably close and provides additional controls. The whole package makes a great generic modern fighter cockpit that is adaptable to almost any aircraft, particularly in DCS World. The MFD displays are natively supported in the F/A-18C, F-16C, AH-64, and A-10C. For some reason they did not provide an automatic profile for the AV-8B. With hardware like this available at a reasonable price, I don't see any reason to build expensive, custom replica cockpits that are optimized for one type of aircraft. I mainly fly in VR, so the MFD displays were a guilty pleasure (waste of money), but it is so cool to see the controls and indicators match the screen. If you have the money to burn and like flying modern jets and helos in DCS World, this is a fantastic setup.

Turtle Beach continues to impress me. Their rudder pedals look pretty cool. They come with both types of pedals, i.e., full footrest or heel on the floor types. You can adjust the pedal width. They remind me of Saitek pedals, but with more and better features, such as all hall-effect sensors. I would be tempted to buy them, but my Saitek pedals still work ok. If I did buy another set of rudder pedals, I would probably spend the extra money to get Thrustmaster TPRs again - I love the one I am presently using. I don't how well the Turtle Beach hardware holds up under continuous use, but if it is as good as my really old Saitek hardware, then it looks like a great mid-range priced choice.

It is a yoke/throttle quadrant setup meant to be used with MSFS 2020 on the XBox or PC. I remember when their main PC product was sound cards. More competition is always welcome if they offer a decent price and/or quality improvement over the existing products. So, let's see how they do in this difficult market. VelocityOne™ Flight Universal Control System – Turtle Beach®

What an amazing trip! It must be great to meet all of these internet friends face to face while also touring so many places and seeing so many airplanes.

At one time, it worked great with VorpX. But in recent history, I have been unable to get the Quest 2 to work with SF2. It is possible that it is working again, but I haven't tried in a long time. On the other hand, the HP Reverb G2 was still working great the last time I tried, but that was several months ago. VorpX constantly goes through patches/upgrades (as do gpu drivers), so there is no telling when compatibility will be broken and/or restored. But if you can get it working correctly, it isn't as good as a natively VR sim like DCS World, but it still looks amazing. When you fly mods that have full 3d cockpits like the recent F-5 releases is when it looks its best. Stock cockpits were never built to let you look all over in the vertical and horizontal.

Mods are just that. For me, YAP was always a source of 3d models beyond the missions. WTR is a complete mod like Desert Storm or Korean Air War. I don't see any reason why you can't mix the two as you see fit as long as you know what you want and how to edit ini files. The principal difference is YAP has files available for download now. WTR progress has been slow and from an end user perspective remains only screenshots. If WTR ever becomes available and its quality is as high as intended, it probably won't need objects from YAP to improve it, but YAP covers a much wider time frame: take the best of both and make one massive, great install.

The team working on YAP has been allowed to post their progress and downloads on the official YAP site. Go here for the latest files and news: YANKEE AIR PIRATE

The AI aircraft of DCS were originally a holdover from LOMAC/Flaming Cliffs... which did not have the MiG-21 at all! Most newer AI aircraft are variants of new flyable aircraft. i.e. the MiG-21bis. The MiG-17 does not exist yet, but the MiG-15bis does a fair job of standing in for the MiG-17. For Russians/USSR there is the MiG-15bis, MiG-19P, MiG-21bis, MiG-23MLD, MiG-25PD, MiG-25RBT, MiG-27K, MiG-29A, MiG-29G (luftwaffe), MiG-29K, MiG-29S, MiG-31, Su-17M4, Su-24M, Su-24MR, Su-25, Su-25T, Su-25TM, Su-27, Su-30, Su-33, Su-39, Il-76MD, Il-78M, Tu-22M3, Tu-95MS, Tu-142, and Tu-160. Player flyable MiG-17 and MiG-23MLA are supposedly on the way, no way to know when if ever they will be finished/released.

The MiG-19 was the real UFO: power-to weight with resulting climb, acceleration, and sustained turn performance was outstanding, turning ability almost as good as a MiG-17 and still has guns. The MiG-21 varies with the particular model. The early MiG-21F-13 is a turn fighter, but a little short on power/climb. The PF/PFMA series traded weight for radar, so not as sporty as the F-13. The S/SM added power but at the cost of weight. The final MiG-21bis had almost as much power/acceleration as an F-16, but its weight increase and center of gravity change killed its agility and somewhat degraded its previously pleasant handling characteristics. The hard wing F-4s, (all of them except the F-4E and F-4F, and early F-4Es were hard wing, too), were energy fighters vs turn fighting MiG-21F-13. The slatted F-4Es and F-4Fs were turn fighters against the energy fighting MiG-21bis. A gun-armed slatted F-4E/F-4F is the best MiG killer of them all (though a slatted F-4S without the gun with later AIM-9H/L/M missiles and a more advanced radar is possibly better). WVR, you have to go high and see if you can get the MiG-17 to stall out and/or circle in a way that gives you a diving shot. When Duke Cunnigham took on a MiG-17 in the vertical, he nearly lost: he would outclimb the MIG-17 providing a gunshot opportunity. He only won once the MiG tried to extend and go home. MiGs don't have much fuel. Run them out and make them retreat, which means using afterburner as little as possible. But in a 1 vs many, sooner or later one may give you a shot, you just have to keep an eye on your tail and use speed/climb to avoid getting shot. In a many vs many, you get kills by attacking MiGs that are getting behind your wingmen. It is a race against time: can you get a shot on the MiG before the MiG shoots your wingman down, and can you shoot without accidently killing your wingman. The game allows AI to see 360 degrees to keep them from being stupid, so you can't exploit the worst features of the MiGs, particularly the MiG-21 after the F-13: horrible view form the cockpit. You would otherwise be able to get in a blind spot and they wouldn't know which direction to go or how hard to pull. If you have AIM-7s there are two ways to use them: the AIM-7E is works best in a head on. You can use you power/speed to extend, the reverse for a head on AIM-7 shot. You have to learn how long to extend before reversing. This only works well against the MiG-17 which is much slower and has no missiles. The AIM-7E2 is better used as a stern chase dogfight missile. It is more effective than the AIM-9B, AIM-9E, and in my opinion even the AIM-9J. Whereas a naval F-4B/F-4J in Vietnam should have at least the AIM-9D, better yet the AIM-9G (possibly the AIM-9H, but I don't know if any were actually carried and fired before the air war ended). The AIM-9D/G/H makes the Naval F-4s better than an F-4C/D with AIM-9B/E/J. The effective envelope for the AIM-9G/H is very generous, so you can take some pretty difficult shots using vertical/stall tactics. The hardest fights are F-4B/C/D hard wings with earlier missiles. F-4Ds eventually did well with AIM-7s in 1972. F-4Es rarely used their guns, but a MiG-19 was downed at supersonic speed, which is an unrivalled record. F-4Js with AIM-9Gs clobbered MiG-17s. F-4Ds and F-4Es with AIM-7E2 did well in stern chases. But when you read about real Vietnam air combat, most fights ended with no kills and usually with no hits. But in 1972, with better training and better weapons, the Navy killed everything that crossed its path primarily with AIM-9Gs. After getting trounced on May 10, 1972, the MiG-17 would never been intentionally used to intercept F-4s, only for training. 1 vs 1, a hard wing F-4 has to be very patient against a MiG-21MF (essentially an export MiG-21SM). If you can't get a shot, you may have to disengage. But again, the MiG-21 has much less fuel endurance/range and in reality the F-4s had tankers available. So the best tactic is to avoid getting tailed/shot until the MiG-21 tries to flee due to low fuel. The slatted F-4E and F-4F is roughly even with the MiG-21SM/MiG-21MF/MiG-21bis. The F-4 should actually turn a little better if the flight models were realistic. In reality, MiG-21s of the F-13/PF/PFM/PFMA series had issues with engine limits at low altitudes. Even hard wing F-4s outperformed the early MiG-21s at low altitude. Unfortunately, in 1972, the F-4 pilots learned that the MiG-21MF had enough power to catch up to F-4s trying to extend as sea level. Try changing the AI difficulty level. I think enemy aircraft can be set to Easy, Normal, Hard. Normal provides more realistic flight behavior. AI doesn't use player flight models, so AI aircraft are often more capable than the same aircraft flown by players. Setting them to Normal gets results close to reality.

DCS has come so far since the A-10C and Ka-50. While development continues at an ever slow, but steady pace, something that may never be fixed is the cost-effectiveness of releasing variants of any one particular aircraft. Typically, the final, best variant is modeled, and you miss out on all the developments from initial service to the final variant. Case in point, MiG-21. The MiG-21F-13 is very different from the MiG-21 PF/PFMA series, then comes the big jump to the S/SM series, and finally, the bis. But all you get for DCS is the bis. There are some exceptions, but the resources it takes to make even a minor variant is more than people are willing to pay. So developers are better off making unique aircraft rather recycling variants of an already released aircraft. ED is biased towards modern and WW2, so it takes 3rd party developers to provide 1950s-1980s aircraft and variants. DCS development is difficult: lots of time and effort and ED's contract requirements for licensing/support. At least some are stepping up to the plate to try even though some of have failed. Hopefully, the F-100D won't be in development forever and will be accurately modeled with few bugs. There is no such thing as a DCS module with no bugs.

Most modern medium and long range missiles use a two-stage engine: during boost phase, a short strong burst of power is used to get up to speed, then during the sustain phase, the output of the engine is much weaker to allow the engine to burn longer to increase range. So, these ini settings allow you to try to replicate this process. The sustainer is just strong enough to try to maintain the speed of the missile while flying straight. Once the sustainer burns out, the missile is gliding unpowered. Older missiles and short range missiles tend to use a short, strong single boost phase, then coast until they run out of speed.

The DCS plane set keeps getting closer to the SFP1/WoX/SF2 series :) The Kfir is coming! Official News 2022 - Page 2 - Official Updates - ED Forums (dcs.world)

The F2H-2 model is quite nice, too. A very accurate shape and you should be able to find updates to the ini files and skin packs on this website supporting Korean Air War 2.

I have short chats with Julhelm fairly often, he keeps me posted with screenshots of his current projects. He stays busy with 3d modeling work and has a wife and kid, so he is short on free time for CombatAce/SF2.